Melissa Hepburne

Melissa Hepburne is the pen name of Craig Broude
I had been writing serious novels. One day my agent said to me, “Say, I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t you write something that sells?”

He asked if I could write romances. “Sure,” I told him. “No problem. What are they?” He explained they were the hottest genre going and suggested I read a few to learn the format. “Then write me an outline and two chapters,” he said, “and I’ll sell it for you.”

If you’re wondering why a man would write under a female pen name, consider: All of the editors of romance novels are women. All of the readers are women. And the authors’ names on all the sexy book covers are women’s--even though an estimated 10% of the authors are men like me. Some of the best-selling, reigning queens of the genre are men. Like Jennifer Wilde, who is in reality a 6-foot Texan named Tom Huff.

When my agent told me I couldn’t have my own name on my novels, I was indignant and called it sexist.

“Nobody says it’s fair,” he told me. “It doesn’t have to be fair--it’s business.” He told me that Marian Evans, a brilliant writer of the 1800s, wasn’t allowed to use her name either, because of business customs of that era. So she became George Eliot. It didn’t seem to hurt her any. [LA times 1991]